The Lumia 928 has gobbled all of the spotlight in the weeks preceding Nokia’s London event so unfortunately there wasn’t that shock-and-awe factor that makes these events worth paying attention to. But still, the Lumia 928 has a camera that will stimulate the amateur photographer inside you.

First, the Lumia will cost an affordable $99 (with $50 mail-in rebate). Under the hood it will boast a Dual-core 1.5GHz MSM8960 processor, offer a usual 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, and run on Windows Phone 8. Clarity is supported by an OLED 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ 1,280×768 Gorilla Glass 2 display.

The big news comes with the camera which is a 8.7-megapixel OIS f/2.0 5-element Carl Zeiss lens with xenon flash and PureView imaging technology for low-light situations and shooting footage on the move.

The Lumia 920 and 925 are almost identical to the 928

Sorry to burst your hopeful bubble about something completely off the map from Nokia, but the 928’s brethren are almost identical except really for weight, color, and dimensions. Just take a look at this comparative table from Engadget, unless of course you don’t want to be completely let down. But all are outfitted with Bluetooth, LTE connectivity, and NFC capability.

Hipstamatic for Lumia

The Lumias will take full advantage of its camera and imaging technology by employing Hipstamatic for its devices. Don’t fret if you’ve never hear of Hipstamatic, its essentially an app like Instragram with additional filters. With Hipstamatic on your Lumia, you’ll be able to view a timeline of your friends’ images and also be able to purchase additional filters for your amateur photography sessions should you find the free selection to constricting. With Hipstamatic you’ll also be able to connect with social networks Facebok, Twitter, Pinterest, and of course Instagram.

Action Shot and Motion Focus

We’ve heard about the specs for the awesome camera tech the Lumias have to offer but we haven’t really seen what it can do. The Action Shot feature allows for the user to combine images to create a slow-motion effect by deleting one or several frames of a picture at any point of any shot. Conversely, the Motion Focus feature allows for a blurring effect in the background but keeps objects in the foreground completely focused. Users can save images and re-edit at later dates.

Bottom Line

Frankly, it doesn’t seem that Nokia came into the event with the confidence and swagger that I was personally hoping for. All of its marketing efforts in the preceding weeks have been utilized to promote the imaging technology that it prides itself on, though little else really captivated me upon reading live blogs and reviewing streams. The smartphones themselves are respectable and will likely operate just fine though without all the bells and whistles of, say, Apple or Samsung. Such a device would be fine for someone like myself who only really uses a phone in the medieval sense, that is to say predominantly for making calls and sending texts. As noted, the cameras will be great for photography buffs to take clear snapshots and record unmuddled footage, which is great in and of itself but that’s pretty much all there is.

No word yet on U.S. availability for the Lumia 925 though the keynotes conveyed the notion that a release will be imminent. So what do all of you think? Are you excited for what Nokia offered today? Are you disappointed? What did you hope to see but didn’t? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.